The Architecture Of Happiness

Author : Alain De Botton
Publisher : McClelland & Stewart
ISBN 13 : 1551993872
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Architecture of Happiness written by Alain De Botton and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2010-12-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author Alain de Botton considers how our private homes and public edifices influence how we feel, and how we could build dwellings in which we would stand a better chance of happiness. In this witty, erudite look at how we shape, and are shaped by, our surroundings, Alain de Botton applies Stendhal’s motto that “Beauty is the promise of happiness” to the spaces we inhabit daily. Why should we pay attention to what architecture has to say to us? de Botton asks provocatively. With his trademark lucidity and humour, de Botton traces how human needs and desires have been served by styles of architecture, from stately Classical to minimalist Modern, arguing that the stylistic choices of a society can represent both its cherished ideals and the qualities it desperately lacks. On an individual level, de Botton has deep sympathy for our need to see our selves reflected in our surroundings; he demonstrates with great wisdom how buildings — just like friends — can serve as guardians of our identity. Worrying about the shape of our sofa or the colour of our walls might seem self-indulgent, but de Botton considers the hopes and fears we have for our homes at a new level of depth and insight. When shopping for furniture or remodelling the kitchen, we don’t just consider functionality but also the major questions of aesthetics and the philosophy of art: What is beauty? Can beautiful surroundings make us good? Can beauty bring happiness? The buildings we find beautiful, de Botton concludes, are those that represent our ideas of a meaningful life. The Architecture of Happiness marks a return to what Alain does best — taking on a subject whose allure is at once tantalizing and a little forbidding and offering to readers a completely beguiling and original exploration of the subject. As he did with Proust, philosophy, and travel, now he does with architecture.

Author : Stewart Brand
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101562641
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book How Buildings Learn written by Stewart Brand and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1995-10-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buildings have often been studies whole in space, but never before have they been studied whole in time. How Buildings Learn is a masterful new synthesis that proposes that buildings adapt best when constantly refined and reshaped by their occupants, and that architects can mature from being artists of space to becoming artists of time. From the connected farmhouses of New England to I.M. Pei's Media Lab, from "satisficing" to "form follows funding," from the evolution of bungalows to the invention of Santa Fe Style, from Low Road military surplus buildings to a High Road English classic like Chatsworth—this is a far-ranging survey of unexplored essential territory. More than any other human artifacts, buildings improve with time—if they're allowed to. How Buildings Learn shows how to work with time rather than against it.

Author : Doug Hoyte
Publisher : Lulu.com
ISBN 13 : 9781435712751
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Let Over Lambda written by Doug Hoyte and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2008 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Let Over Lambda is one of the most hardcore computer programming books out there. Starting with the fundamentals, it describes the most advanced features of the most advanced language: Common Lisp. Only the top percentile of programmers use lisp and if you can understand this book you are in the top percentile of lisp programmers. If you are looking for a dry coding manual that re-hashes common-sense techniques in whatever langue du jour, this book is not for you. This book is about pushing the boundaries of what we know about programming. While this book teaches useful skills that can help solve your programming problems today and now, it has also been designed to be entertaining and inspiring. If you have ever wondered what lisp or even programming itself is really about, this is the book you have been looking for.

Author : Ben Channon
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1003822835
Total Pages : 85 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Happy by Design written by Ben Channon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2023-11-15 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can good design truly make us happier? Given that we spend over 80% of our time in buildings, shouldn't we have a better understanding of how they make us feel? Happy by Design explores the ways in which buildings, spaces and cities affect our moods. It reveals how architecture and design can make us happy and support mental health, and explains how poor design can have the opposite effect. Presented through a series of easy-to-understand design tips and accompanied by beautiful diagrams and illustrations, Happy by Design is a fantastic resource for architects, designers and students, or for anybody who would like to better understand the relationship between buildings and happiness. With the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis, the importance of designing for mental wellbeing has never been higher on the agenda. Whether through low-energy design, designing in better ventilation to avoid passing on pathogens or the realisation of the importance of accessing nature within an environment, this revised edition has been updated to reflect a changed world.

Author : Alain De Botton
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307491331
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Status Anxiety written by Alain De Botton and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “There's no writer alive like de Botton” (Chicago Tribune), and now this internationally heralded author turns his attention to the insatiable human quest for status—a quest that has less to do with material comfort than love. Anyone who’s ever lost sleep over an unreturned phone call or the neighbor’s Lexus had better read Alain de Botton’s irresistibly clear-headed new book, immediately. For in its pages, a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents explores the notion that our pursuit of status is actually a pursuit of love, ranging through Western history and thought from St. Augustine to Andrew Carnegie and Machiavelli to Anthony Robbins. Whether it’s assessing the class-consciousness of Christianity or the convulsions of consumer capitalism, dueling or home-furnishing, Status Anxiety is infallibly entertaining. And when it examines the virtues of informed misanthropy, art appreciation, or walking a lobster on a leash, it is not only wise but helpful.

Author : Alain De Botton
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 030783350X
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Consolations of Philosophy written by Alain De Botton and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-01-23 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, a delightful, truly consoling work that proves that philosophy can be a supreme source of help for our most painful everyday problems. Perhaps only Alain de Botton could uncover practical wisdom in the writings of some of the greatest thinkers of all time. But uncover he does, and the result is an unexpected book of both solace and humor. Dividing his work into six sections -- each highlighting a different psychic ailment and the appropriate philosopher -- de Botton offers consolation for unpopularity from Socrates, for not having enough money from Epicurus, for frustration from Seneca, for inadequacy from Montaigne, and for a broken heart from Schopenhauer (the darkest of thinkers and yet, paradoxically, the most cheering). Consolation for envy -- and, of course, the final word on consolation -- comes from Nietzsche: "Not everything which makes us feel better is good for us." This wonderfully engaging book will, however, make us feel better in a good way, with equal measures of wit and wisdom.

Author : Emily Anthes
Publisher : Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374716684
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.84/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Great Indoors written by Emily Anthes and published by Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-06-23 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Architectural Record Notable Book A fascinating, thought-provoking journey into our built environment Modern humans are an indoor species. We spend 90 percent of our time inside, shuttling between homes and offices, schools and stores, restaurants and gyms. And yet, in many ways, the indoor world remains unexplored territory. For all the time we spend inside buildings, we rarely stop to consider: How do these spaces affect our mental and physical well-being? Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors? Our productivity, performance, and relationships? In this wide-ranging, character-driven book, science journalist Emily Anthes takes us on an adventure into the buildings in which we spend our days, exploring the profound, and sometimes unexpected, ways that they shape our lives. Drawing on cutting-edge research, she probes the pain-killing power of a well-placed window and examines how the right office layout can expand our social networks. She investigates how room temperature regulates our cognitive performance, how the microbes hiding in our homes influence our immune systems, and how cafeteria design affects what—and how much—we eat. Along the way, Anthes takes readers into an operating room designed to minimize medical errors, a school designed to boost students’ physical fitness, and a prison designed to support inmates’ psychological needs. And she previews the homes of the future, from the high-tech houses that could monitor our health to the 3D-printed structures that might allow us to live on the Moon. The Great Indoors provides a fresh perspective on our most familiar surroundings and a new understanding of the power of architecture and design. It's an argument for thoughtful interventions into the built environment and a story about how to build a better world—one room at a time.

Author : Jane Wernick
Publisher : Black Dog Architecture
ISBN 13 : 9781906155469
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.61/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Building Happiness written by Jane Wernick and published by Black Dog Architecture. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Building Happiness project was started by Building Futures early in 2007, with the aim of discussing whether the way we design our built environment can have a direct bearing on how happy we feel. Can we construct happiness?" "The book follows on from numerous consultative initiatives, including a public debate hosted in May 2007, with the aim of gathering public and informed opinion on the subject." "We spoke to a number key thinker and practitioners to share their thoughts. Architects, artists, policy advisors, developers, engineers and health researchers have all contributed. In addition, we have asked people who use and inhabit our built environment to describe places which do indeed make them happy, including the journalist Kirsty Wark, the sculptor Antony Gormley, the architect Richard Rogers, and the Young Vic Theatre Director David Lan." "This book aims to provoke discussion amongst all those who inhabit, plan or design our built spaces, and to encourage the professionals to keep happiness at the centre of their work."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Alain de Botton
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0241967384
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The News written by Alain de Botton and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2014-02-06 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER From one of our greatest voices in modern philosophy, author of The Course of Love, The Consolations of Philosophy, Religion for Atheists and The School of Life - an accessible and eye-opening exploration of our relationship with 'the news' 'His gift is to prompt us to think about how we live and how we might change things' The Times 'De Botton analyses modern society with great charm, learning and humour. His remedies come as a welcome relief' Daily Mail 'Like all classic de Botton, there are plenty of insightful observations here, peppered with some psychology, a dash of philosophy, a big dollop of commonsense' Scotsman 'The news' occupies a range of manic and peculiar positions in our lives. We invest it with an authority and importance which used to be the preserve of religion - but what does it do for us? Mixing current affairs with philosophical reflections, de Botton offers a brilliant illustrated guide to the precautions we should take before venturing anywhere near the news and the 'noise' it generates. Witty and global in reach, The News will ensure you'll never look at reports of a celebrity story or political scandal in quite the same way again.

Author : Francesco Garutti
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781927071656
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Our Happy Life written by Francesco Garutti and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do we design our cities when our most intimate experiences are incessantly tracked and our feelings become the base of new modes of production that prioritize the immaterial over the material? Since the 2008 financial crisis, lists of well-being indicators, happiness indexes, and quality-of-life rankings have become viral. Concurrently, the emotional data presented in these surveys?including perceptions on questions such as loneliness, friendship, and intimate fears?feed an expanding political agenda of happiness and a new form of market whose most decisive asset is ?affect.?00'Our Happy Life' investigates the architectural implications of this trend by dissecting and questioning the political, economic, and emotional conditions that generate space today. Organized as a visual narrative with critical readings by Will Davies, Daniel Fujiwara, Simon Fujiwara, Ingo Niermann, Deane Simpson, and Mirko Zardini, the book reveals architecture, city, and landscape as contested surfaces, caught between the intangible guidelines of happiness indexes, the new marketplace of emotions, and the relentless ideology of positivity.00Exhibition: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Canada (08.05. - 13.10.2019).